Birmingham City Council to interview Water Works Board applicants

The need to appoint a member to the Water Works board is re-igniting an old debate over term limits.

Birmingham City Council members Monday will begin interviewing 11 applicants for a seat on the Water Works Board.

Candidates include the current board member holding that seat, Fultondale Mayor Jim Lowery; Mountain Brook Mayor Terry Oden, and Ann Florie, executive director of Leadership Birmingham. The utilities committee will forward a recommendation to the full council for a vote.

Lowery's application resurrects an old debate over term limits for board members and a 20-year-old resolution setting those rules.

Councilwoman Valerie Abbott said the council should follow its own ordinance that created a two-term limit for most boards except for "extreme circumstances . . . or unless state or federal law requires otherwise."

Technically, Lowery has served one full term and a partial term. He was appointed in 1999 and served five-and-a-half years of a six-year term. He has just completed a full six-year term and is vying for another.

"Of the people who have applied for the vacant position, there are two or three who are highly qualified to serve on the Water Works Board," Abbott said. "Certainly, if anyone is going to comply with the law, it should be elected officials. Of course, if you read the paper, you find that that's not necessarily so."

Water Works Board members are paid $285 per meeting and make key decisions on major contracts with engineers, lawyers and consultants for the state's largest public water utility. The power, pay and influence of the board make its five seats the most coveted among city appointments.

"Hopefully, Councilor Smitherman and her committee will be very deliberative and very objective in their recommendation to the council," said Council President Roderick Royal.

Smitherman Thursday said she will abstain from the selection process, including the council's vote, because her husband, state Sen. Rodger Smitherman, is a lawyer who works with Charlie Waldrep, whose firm represents the utility.

Smitherman said she consulted with the Alabama Ethics Commission, which told her she was clear to vote, but she decided to be cautious and abstain. While she has voted on previous board appointments, Smitherman said she did so because there wasn't a full nine-member dais for those votes. In addition, her husband's work with the firm has since changed, Smitherman said.

Abbott said the council should be aware of the city's 30-year tradition of appointing one member from outside the city to serve on the Water Works Board. The utility, while an asset of the city, serves 600,000 residential customers in Jefferson, Shelby, Blount, Walker and St. Clair counties.

Opponents of the City Council's appointing authority have previously threatened legislation to remove that power, Abbott said, and new leaders in the state Legislature could make that threat a reality if the city dishonors its gentlemen's agreement. Lowery is the only director of the five-member board who doesn't live in Birmingham.

"If this is the 'outside of Birmingham appointment,' then the people that we interview need to be the ones who live outside of Birmingham, and if we ignore that, we do that at our own peril," Abbott said.

Councilwoman Kim Rafferty said she favors term limits for public boards. Otherwise, the positions are treated more as opportunities for employment than for public service, she said.

The arguments rising during the deliberations are similar to debates in 2006 as the council discussed reappointing longtime member Anthony Barnes, who had served two full terms and a partial four-year term. The council reappointed him after declaring extreme circumstances.

The term-limits ordinance was the basis of a lawsuit filed by David Russell, an applicant for the appointment who wanted to stop the council from reappointing Barnes. A Jefferson County judge ruled that the council did not violate its rules. Russell is among the candidates for the current open seat.Â